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Viola Marco

During my bachelor in philosophy (in Turin) I mainly dealt with analytic metaphysics and cognitive science, assessing the pros and the cons of naturalizing some traditional metaphysical topics. During my master (in Turin; visiting in Louvain-la-Neuve) I rather focused on epistemological issues, particularly concerning the foundations of cognitive neuroscience.
During my PhD (IUSS Pavia & San Raffaele; visiting in Sydney) I carried out a philosophical analysis of methodological and ontological issues implied in the practices of cognitive neuroscientists – often in collaboration with them. In particular, I addressed the relation between psychological and neural kinds, developing two case studies: (1) Broca’s Area, a neural structure that was traditionally conceived as supporting the production of language, but whose function is recently much more debated; (2) the emotion, and especially the so-called Basic Emotions, whose status is also debated.
I am also interested in the social organization of science, and I have some organizational and teaching experience.
Since I begun my PhD, I delivered more or less 40 speeches, including presentation at conferences, seminars, and lessons, either in Italian and in English. In Italy, my paper on Broca's Area (with my co-author and fellow PhD student Elia Zanin) made me win the 2016 scientific prize of the Italian Society for Cognitive Science.
I also have experience as a thesis co-supervisor for BA and MA students.
I organized some conferences and currently I am the co-organizer of Neural Mechanisms Online, the first webinar of philosophy of neuroscience, involving great spekaers from many countries (see https://neuralmechanismsonline.wordpress.com/)